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El Rushbo on HBO's The Newsroom

RUSH: The EIB Network made HBO's show The Newsroom last night. Yeah, yeah, we made it. And I know why we made it. Sorkin puts me in there so that I'll play clips from the stupid show, and then promote the stupid show and so forth. I know how it works. That's what they all do. All these networks mention me hoping and praying that I will play sound bites of them mentioning me, which will then incite curiosity for the network at large. People then tune in to listen. (interruption) Oh, yeah, they disparaged me, said a couple things that aren't true.

Go ahead, grab 26 and 27. Here's the lead anchor on the show, Jeff Daniels, portraying the news anchor Will McAvoy. And this is during a report. Now, remember what this show is. The Newsroom runs at 10:30 on Sunday nights on HBO, which is when Breaking Bad is on. Breaking Bad premiered last night, and it's great. In fact, I'll tell you what happened. I had three shows set up to record at ten o'clock last night on my DVR, and I have two DVRs. Actually... Yeah, I'll leave it at two. (laughing)

I've got two DVRs, but I made a mistake and I set three to record two programs at one time. I set it up to record three shows at ten o'clock last night. One is this new Sigourney Weaver "I'm Hillary Clinton" show on the USA Network called Political Animals, and then Breaking Bad, the season premiere at ten o'clock. And then this The Newsroom thing airs on HBO. So at about 9:58 the TV says, "Uh-oh, you got a conflict here. You got two programs slated to record here at ten o'clock.

"You gotta cancel one of them." And the options I was given were Political Animal or The Newsroom. So I said, "Screw The Newsroom. Don't record it." (chuckles) Well, it happened to be the episode where I'm mentioned. But they rerun those things left and right if I care to see it. I don't need to watch it, though. I've got the sound bite here. Do you watch Breaking Bad? Oh ho. I love that show! Folks, it's the most amazing show. There's not one likable character. There's not one admirable thing in the show. (chuckles)

You watch this show and you hate everybody in it. (chuckles) But it's one of the best shows on TV. Joel Surnow told me about it. I had never heard of the show. Joel Surnow told me about it. In the middle of the second or third season of the show, he said, "You ever watch Breaking Bad?" I said, "No, I never heard of it." He said, "It's the best show on TV." I said, "How is it the best show on TV if I've never heard of it?" "It's the best show on TV." So I got the DVDs, watched the first couple episodes of the season, and said, "This is horrible."

It's about a high school chemistry professor who gets cancer. He's diagnosed with terminal cancer. He doesn't have any money so he gets together... I'm really shortening this. He gets together with one of his reprobate high school students who runs a meth lab, and together they create the greatest crystal meth in the southwestern United States, including Mexico. This guy's brother-in-law is a DEA agent, and now we're in season five, and the DEA agent is no closer to knowing his brother-in-law is the new Scarface kingpin.

The show has chronicled this guy starting out as the meekest, anybody-can-walk-all-over-him chemistry professor, to now he's the biggest crime lord in the country. It's fascinating. And his reprobate partner is some high school ne'er-do-well punk kid. They're all hateful characters. They're all hateful. Even this guy's wife is hateful. They're all hateful, even the kid! Everybody in it. It's the first show I ever watched where nobody is likable, which is unique. Most shows have at least one or two lovable characters to identify with.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Now, back to The Newsroom. I have become product placement. Essentially, ladies and gentlemen, I am the new product placement. Product placement is the stuff that movies stick on their sets like a bottle of Coke or an iPhone or whatever, for which the movie companies charge an exorbitant fee... product placement... except I, El Rushbo, am not being paid, even though I'm product placement, because fair usage. Now, let me tell you what The Newsroom is. The Newsroom is a fake television news network, every ten o'clock on Sunday night on HBO. And the technique, it's Aaron Sorkin, who wrote The West Wing, which many liberals thought was the actual White House when Martin Sheen was president. They fantasized about it.

The technique of this show is to live in the past. For example, the opening episode dealt with the BP oil spill and how the news networks should have covered it and how they shoulda zeroed in on BP and how they shoulda destroyed that company and how they should not have let 'em up to breathe. So what Sorkin is doing is going back to news events that have already happened and writing a television show about this fictitious news network and how it should have been covered if the news was being done the right way at the time. So on last night's episode, we have a portion here. This is the anchor, Will McAvoy, played by the actor Jeff Daniels, and they're doing a report on media coverage of Obama's trip to India in 2010. Sound bite 26 first. Here we go.

DANIELS: Radio host Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly warned his listeners to go out and buy guns before President Obama outlaws them all.

RUSH: Now, stop the tape. I shoulda asked somebody to go to the archives before the program started. I don't remember ever doing this. Now, I know there were people who were doing this. I didn't tell people to go buy guns before Obama outlaws them all. I don't think I did that. But, see, I'm Xerox. I am talk radio. I am product placement. Recue that thing to the top. I mean, it's gonna be hard to prove a negative here, but we're gonna search the archives. I'm gonna find out if I actually was the one urging people to go out and buy guns before Obama outlawed 'em all. I remember people doing it. I remember talking about it, reporting it. It's not something that would ever occur to me. I am more careful than that. But, see, it doesn't matter. I still get blamed for it. Here's the bite now in its totality.

DANIELS: Radio Host Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly warned his listeners to go out and buy guns before President Obama outlaws them all. The result? In November 2008, the month Mr. Obama was elected, there was a 42% spike in gun background checks as compared to the same month the year before. In spite of Governor Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the Director of the NRA telling us emphatically that Barack Obama has a secret plan to get our guns, here is the president's report card. Background checks? F. Gun trafficking? F. These grades would indicate that President Obama is the best friend the NRA has ever had in elected office, to say nothing of the Oval Office. Why are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the head of the NRA so colossally lying to you? I don't know.

RUSH: This is a news show. This fictitious newsroom is an HBO show. And as I say, they're going back, they're taking events in the past and re-covering them on the show as Aaron Sorkin thinks that the news networks back then should have. I wonder if Aaron Sorkin has ever heard of Fast and Furious. I wonder if Aaron Sorkin has ever heard of the story that Obama and Eric Holder did everything they could to get AK-47s into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels for the express purpose of ginning up anti-Second Amendment fervor among the American people.

I wonder if Aaron Sorkin is aware of the fact that the Justice Department will not release documents that would tell us the truth of the program. So not only does he report that I'm out there telling everybody to go buy guns before Obama outlaws them. Now he's saying that Obama's the best friend the NRA ever had. It's an absolute crock. Snerdley is sending me a little note here, it says, "Thanks for the clip. You've just insured I'll never watch or pay any attention to The Newsroom." Well that's only the first bite. The actor, Jeff Daniels, as the anchor Will McAvoy, continued.

DANIELS: On November 2nd of last year the website for New Delhi TV quoted an anonymous official of the Maharashtra government saying that President Obama's trip would be costing $200 million a day. The Drudge Report posted a link to the story believing it to be possible, or not caring that it isn't. Rush Limbaugh knows this figure can't possibly be right. But Mr. Limbaugh runs with it anyway.

RUSH ARCHIVE: 507 rooms at the Taj Mahal, 40 airplanes, $200 million a day this nation will spend on Obama's trip to India.

DANIELS: I think people who willfully, purposefully and gleefully lie to the American people in order to damage someone's reputation should, like a registered sex offender, be required by law to come with that warning label for the rest of their lives.

RUSH: That is their fantasy. Their fantasy is, in a second Obama administration, that conservatives would have to register like sex offenders. That's their fantasy. In order to damage someone's reputation... you mean like Obama's doing now with this silly notion that Romney's a felon? From Mr. Civility himself, all of this guttural, rotgut sleaze coming in the form of a presidential campaign, coming from Obama? I remember this story. I remember this, and that was what was first reported. There were 40 airplanes taking all the administration people and the press and everything, and taking out the whole Taj Mahal. I don't remember the source of the story, but I think it was the regime. I think the regime put this thing out so that they could then laugh at everybody for believing it later and at the same time issue a denial.

Mr. Sorkin, the thing is people believed it because it's entirely possible with this guy. I mean they take two airplanes to Martha's Vineyard. Mrs. Obama took 40 people and who knows what all to Spain all by herself. The India story was from India Today. It was a publication from India, one of their journals, and they're the ones who reported the size of the Obama entourage.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Todd in Divernon, Illinois. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Rush, we love you out here, man. Hey, I heard earlier in the show that you love the TV show Breaking Bad because it's the only show where every character in it is despicable and unlikable. So I was gonna tell you: If you like that, I suggest you watch the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

RUSH: (laughing) Well, I didn't say that I liked it "because" they are all despicable. I observed that I liked it even though there's not one likable character there in that show. I made that observation last year. Every one of these characters irritates me. In fact, I have an active dislike for them. I mean, even the people that are trying to be decent, good people I dislike. It's a fascinating show. It really is. Todd, thanks much.